In a materials handling facility, such as an order fulfillment center, multiple customer orders are received, where each order specifies one or more items from inventory to be shipped to the customer that submitted the order. To fulfill the customer orders, the items may be retrieved, or picked, from inventory (which may also be referred to as stock storage) in the materials handling facility. Under direction of a sorting control system, picked items may be singulated and then inducted into a conveyance mechanism that routes the items to particular destinations, such as sorting stations, in a conveyance route in accordance with the customer orders currently being processed. From the sorting station, the items can be directed to an order processing station, such as a packing station at which one or more units of items for an order are processed, packed, and labeled for shipping to the customer.
Oftentimes during packaging, one or more items are placed in a box along with a filler material that is intended to minimize shifting during transport and to act as shock absorber. In many instances, the box that is shipped to a customer contains only one item.